The only movie reviews you need

Monday, July 25, 2016

From watching the chic young
‘90210’ cast of J.J. Abrams’ rebooted Star Trek movie franchise, it’s hard to
fathom that Gene Roddenberry’s venerable sci-fi space opera just turned 50 this
year.Then again, it’s equally hard to imagine
that ‘Star Trek: The Original Series’ (TOS) was axed by NBC back in 1969 after just three
seasons as a result of dismal ratings, only to become a big hit in syndication
and remain one of the most enduring cultural phenomena of our time with legions of fans called Trekkies (I
mean “Trekkers”) five decades later.

‘Star Trek Beyond’ is the third
entry in the new ST cinematic universe (to borrow Marvel’s terminology) and is
the first not directed by J.J. Abrams who, in an act of betrayal worthy of Kylo Ren himself, took
on a certain other space opera project and stayed on only as producer this time
around.Holy Benedict Arnold,
Batman!Filling in
is Taiwanese director Justin Lin, who’s everything Ang Lee isn’t and whom I regard as the Chinese answer to Michael Bay. For those unfamiliar, Lin is the guy responsible for pulling 'Fast & Furious' out of straight-to-DVD obscurity and making it into one of the most inexplicably lucrative film franchises in recent memory. Lin brought his fast-and-furious style to this
latest installment, making ‘Star Trek Beyond’ the most fast-paced and
jam-packed-with-nonstop-action ST movie we’ve seen yet.Case in point, while it took Abrams most of
‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ just to damage the Enterprise, it only took Lin the
first half hour or so to totally obliterate the iconic starship at the hands
of the movie’s baddie, a villain by the name of General Krall (Idris Elba).

In spite of its cinematic excess, ‘Star
Trek Beyond’ managed to be another solid addition to the ST
franchise, providing viewers with a fun and action-packed deep space adventure yarn in
the grand tradition of popcorn movies.Filled with individual exploits of derring-do, dastardly villainy and a colorful cast of
characters (including the feisty alien heroine played by Sofia Boutella shown below), it is an immensely satisfying thrill ride worth taking
not just for the diehard Trekkers but for anyone who simply enjoys a good
sci-fi/action flick.

Good horror movies are hard to
come by nowadays largely due to their susceptibility to sequel-itis and
tendency to follow the same tired formulas, but in light of their popularity
with young moviegoers looking for a good fright and favorable
return-on-investment they are often a lucrative and safe bet.While Hollywood will never stop swinging for
the all-or-nothing home runs by making blockbuster tent-poles costing hundreds
of millions in the vain hopes of recouping three times the films’
budgets at the box office, producers of horror films have discovered their own little secret: that
settling for hitting singles often isn't such a bad deal.First-time director David Sandberg’s new
supernatural horror movie, ‘Lights Out,’ is the latest example of this limited approach.
With a mere budget of $5 million, it has already grossed nearly $30 million
worldwide.Even if it drops
substantially over its second weekend and disappears from theaters
by week 3, the movie will be considered an unqualified success.

‘Lights Out’ (co-produced by
James Wan) is a PG-13 rated supernatural thriller about a family terrorized by
a malevolent entity that takes form in the darkness.It is quite an intriguing – if unoriginal – hook.But good horror movies can’t simply rely on
gimmicks and must immerse us in the story and make us care about the
characters. ‘Lights Out’ delivers in
this regard.As with most James Wan
movies (either as director or producer), the film centers around a small group of
people whom the audience gains sympathy with in their worsening predicament, in
this case a young woman named Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) and her little brother
Martin (Gabriel Martin), who lives with his deranged mother Sophie (Maria
Bello) and an entity of pure and unadulterated evil named Diana.

‘Lights Out’ is an effective
little chiller due to its simplicity and sparseness.From its nightmarishly creepy opening scene
inside a mannequin factory to its final act, the movie’s scary moments are well
parsed out for maximum impact without overdoing it and thereby rendering us
immune, like many horror movies couldn’t resist doing.Likewise, the performances by its cast of
relative unknowns are subtle and understated yet no less powerful, driving the
story briskly along and making us true “believers” in its outlandish supernatural
premise.

Monday, July 18, 2016

Ivan Reitman’s 1984 supernatural
comedy ‘Ghostbusters’ gets a shot of estrogen in actor/director Paul Feig’s 2016
reboot.Paul Feig (‘Bridesmaids,’ ‘Heat’
and ‘Spy’) is best known for collaborating with A-list comedic actress Melissa
McCarthy, who’s one of the four Ghostbusters in this update, but did you know
that he also created the short-lived coming-of-age cult comedy series ‘Freaks
and Geeks’ produced by Judd Apatow?
Didn't think so. Bringing back ‘Ghostbusters’ is no mean feat for the director, because
he has to walk a fine line between attracting a new generation of viewers while
not straying too far from the original and alienating fans of the 1984 classic.

Like the ‘Ghostbusters’ of auld with
Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd, thenew
‘Ghostbusters’ leans heavily on SNL with ¾ of its team comprised of
current or recent SNL cast members in Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones,
with the fourth being McCarthy who’s hosted SNL quite a few times.Even more than the original, the all-female
Ghostbusters are nerdy science types who would fit right in on ‘Big Bang
Theory’; Wiig as a straight-laced and socially awkward physics professor, McCarthy as a PhD outcast weird
science paranormal investigator, and McKinnon’s Dr. Jillian
Holtzmann is a tomboyish and gay mad engineer whose madcap experiments would
give Christopher Lloyd’s Dr. Emmet Brown a decent run for his money.The lone holdout of the geek club is Leslie
Jones’s Patty, who makes up for her lack of science smarts with her
street smarts and like-the-back-of-her-hand knowledge of NYC.Aussie actor Chris Hemsworth (‘Thor’)
proves that he has comedic chops as the Ghostbuster’s hunky male receptionist/secretary
Kevin, who’s kept on for his looks despite being dumb as a bag of hammers in a
classic example of gender role reversal.

‘Ghostbusters 2016’ is a fun if
somewhat familiar exercise in 1980’s nostalgia.
Paying homage and staying true to the spirit of the original, the film is a respectful
reboot and featured cameos from the original cast including Bill Murray,
Sigourney Weaver, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson (sadly, Harold Ramis passed away in
2014) and Slimer the ectoplasm-spewing ghost.The four female leads were all game and did justice to the Ghostbusters
franchise, demonstrating that they can walk the walk as well as talk the
pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo.

Bad behavior and immature
shenanigans make for good comedy, and the latest raunchy R-rated offering,
‘Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates,’ is no exception.Fresh off reprising his role as a party
animal frat-boy in ‘Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising,’ Zac Efron plays the younger
(and surprisingly) more mature and level headed of two dorky brothers who,
at the directive of their long suffering parents, had to find respectable dates
to bring to their little sister’s wedding in Hawaii.They did so by posting an ad on
Craigslist plus a Youtube invitation for open auditions and appearing on Wendy Williams when it goes viral.Whoo boy, what could possibly
go wrong?

The two winners of a free “vacay”
to Hawaii turned out to be saucy and irresponsible Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza) and
sweet and dopey Alice (Anna Kendrick).Alice is still recovering from the emotional trauma of her own recent
wedding disaster and Tatiana thought going to Hawaii would be just the thing
for her BFF to “get her groove back.”At
first, the two dates seem pleasant enough and appear to be just what the doctor
ordered to hold Mike (Adam DeVine) and Dave (Efron) in check, but first impressions
can be deceiving and the girls soon proved to be even wilder and more of a
handful than the hapless siblings.

M&DNWD has its share of funny
moments amidst all the dysfunctional family drama, and the predictable redemption
moment in the end is true to formula.Nothing is really new or anything we haven’t seen before, but the movie also has “heart” and its four
young stars bring just enough to the wedding in their roles to make the movie
a worthwhile diversion.Besides, a movie featuring
the comely Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza can’t be all that bad, right?

Monday, July 11, 2016

‘The Purge: Election Year’ (aka
“How I saved a presidential candidate from being purged”) is the second
follow-up to the surprising 2013 box office hit ‘The Purge,’ which earned
nearly $90 million on a budget of $3 million.The second film, ‘Purge: Anarchy,’ didn’t do too shabbily either, raking
in well over $100 million on an $11 million investment.Which means the producers at Blumhouse and Platinum Dunes (Michael Bay's production company)
risk being purged themselves if they didn’t keep spinning off this proven
moneymaker.Although we’re seeing some
diminishing returns, ‘The Purge: Election Year’ (with a budget of just $10
million) has made over $60 million thus far over two weekends, which suggests
that we may have the next ‘Saw’ franchise on our hands.Thankfully, ‘The Purge’ may well end on this
note while it’s still on top.

For those of you unfamiliar with
the outrageous premise, ‘The Purge’ postulates a dystopian contemporary America in which
one day a year, from dusk til dawn on March 21-22, people can commit murder and
other crimes with impunity to their heart’s content.A good purging “cleanses” society and
relieves pressures that create economic hardship on our nation, so the belief
goes.But come on, nobody really cares
about that.People purge because they want
to let their inner demons out in an orgy of wanton catharsis.In ‘The Purge: Election Year,’ there are even
foreigners who come to America in pursuit of this happiness.

‘Election Year’ takes full
advantage of its timeliness and in some ways reflects the deep political, socio-economic and, yes, racial divisions,
disillusionment, and rifts in America today.It’s not particularly deep, nor does it pretend to be
since it’s essentially an exploitation B-movie relying on not-so-subtle
subtexts, but there is that certain undefined quality that speaks to us on a
purely instinctual gut level.Maybe
it’s the visceral thrill of seeing poetic justice being done and the bad guys
getting their just desserts, or the rebellious Anti-Establishment streak in
these films, but somehow it works because on the surface these films really have no
business making such a shitload of money.

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Since pulp fiction author Edgar
Rice Burroughs’s iconic white man in the jungle first appeared in 1914, Tarzan has
appeared on film no less than 48 times.‘The Legend of Tarzan,’ with Alexander Skarsgård in the role of British
Viscount of Greystoke John Clayton of the House of Lords, would make that
49.I can’t say I’ve seen more than a small
handful of Tarzan movies, although watching the syndicated 1966-1968 TV series
starring Ron Ely during the 1980’s was one of my fonder childhood
memories.Tarzan is truly a
larger-than-life role model: heroic, noble, selfless and determined; the
quintessential example of man’s ability to adapt and evolve in a hostile environment. Plus, he was coolly swinging around before
Spiderman ever did.

The task of updating Tarzan for
the jaded modern audience fell on British director David Yates, perhaps best
known for helming the last four Harry Potter films.To his credit, Yates avoided a long and
exhaustive retelling of Tarzan's origin story, relying instead
on brief flashbacks that were more than adequate to the task.In TLOT Lord Greystoke is an adult who has
adjusted into British society in the late 1800’s and happily married to his
beloved Jane Porter (Margot Robbie), 10 years removed from the African Congo where he was raised by apes.Events
conspired to draw him (reluctantly of course) back into the untamed wilderness
when he was recruited by American envoy and Civil War veteran George Washington
Williams (Samuel L. Jackson) to investigate suspected Belgian misdeeds in the
Congo.

While TLOT offers nothing new with
its simple good-versus-evil storyline and clichéd characters, it still
manages to be a rollicking old fashioned action adventure that should please both
the young and old alike.The CG visual
f/x is raised to a whole new level of course, and Skarsgård’s perfectly
sculpted abs will surely please the ladies and be the envy of men who drank
a few more beers than they should have.As the movie's diabolical villain, Christoph Waltz once again showed that he fits the archetype, outshining his previous effort in ‘Spectre’ as the Belgian
envoy Leon Rom.

While mainstream Hollywood tends
to bank on familiarity and prefers to play it safe while shoving big-budget remakes,
reboots and sequels down our collective throats, independent filmmakers have
the luxury of taking risks, daring to be different and to embrace their inner
freakiness.When I first saw the teaser
for the Daniels’ (Scheinert and Kwan) weirdly funny
dramedy ‘Swiss Army Man,’ I knew this is one such movie.Its trailer features an outlandish scene of a
young man stranded on an island who’s about to give up and hang himself until he noticed a corpse washed ashore, then things become more
and more crazy from there.

The corpse “befriending” the
young man Hank (Paul Dano) in question is played by none other than Harry
Potter’s Daniel Radcliffe, who gave what may be his best performance yet
(as a cadaver no less) in a hilarious turn as the flatulent gas-bag Manny.Manny provided the companionship Hank
desperately needed during his enforced solitude to keep his sanity and will to live, and the two unlikeliest of buddies often
struck up conversations on personal topics that no self-respecting straight man should feel
comfortable discussing.But
this is no mere ambiguously gay tale, oh no, as both Hank and Manny just so happen to yearn for the
same woman, Sarah, which is entirely understandable because she’s played by
Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

A comedy featuring a corpse
hasn’t been this weirdly funny since ‘Weekend at Bernie’s.’Quirky and refreshingly original, 'Swiss Army Man' proves that
indies may yet be Hollywood’s salvation and represents a promising start for
Scheinert and Kwan as indie filmmakers with a unique and singular vision.
While their eccentricities may not be everyone’s cup of tea, I’ll be eagerly awaiting
for their next project as long as it doesn’t become one continuous fart
joke.